The AMWU denounces Fairfax chief Greg Hywood for making money out of cutting 1900 jobs at Fairfax staff, including many print workers, as well as closing the printers at the modern Tullamarine facility.

Image courtesy of [Tina Phillips] / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Lorraine Cassin, National Print Secretary for the AMWU, said that it was “a bit rich” for the executive to receive a $420, 000 bonus for the slash. She even further stated that Mr Hywood should give back the bonus that took his full package up to $2.5 million, the AMWU reported.

The $420K bonus was negatively received by shareholders during the annual general meeting held last Wednesday, October 24th.

“We also condemn the decision by Mr Hywood to cash in on the back of the redundancies, patting himself on the back for cutting jobs is disgraceful,” Ms Cassin said.

“Let’s be very clear – this is someone who has profited while Rome burns, he has a share price on rock bottom and he’s taking the high life out of the workers and shareholders,” she further stated.

Ms Cassini also said that the action of the Fairfax exec is “simply unacceptable and a slap on the face of all the people who made this company what it was.”

The AMWU also questions the real motivations regarding the massive job cuts in the midst of comments pertaining to the future of the print editions of The Age and SMH.

Mr Hywood told shareholders during the AGM that the printed edition of the papers would continue for either three, five or ten years – as long as they were profitable.

Ms Cassini challenged Mr Hywood to come clean as to what exactly is going on.

Ms Cassin said. “Why is the company closing the brand new, state-of-the-art facility at Tullamarine when the newspaper could continued to be printed there for at least three years?,” she added

The share price of Fairfax closed about half its value of last year, with more than 25 per cent of shareholders rejecting the company’s management salary package after the Australian Shareholders Association and proxy adviser ISS advised against it